Unlicensed to kill, but sanctioned in San Francisco

My Sunday column on the unnecessary death of Drew Rosenberg resurrects the ugly subject of San Francisco’s wrong-headed sanctuary city policies. On Nov. 16, 2010, Rosenberg was riding his motorcycle in rush-hour traffic when a car driven by an unlicensed driver made a left turn and hit him. Rosenberg died. Police arrested driver Roberto Galo, who was charged with manslaughter and driving without a license. As I wrote,

Five months earlier, San Francisco police stopped Galo for driving the wrong way on a one-way street and driving without a license. The city even impounded his Chevrolet – the car that later would kill Drew Rosenberg – which a friend recovered and then released to Galo.

If SFPD impounded cars driven by unlicensed drivers, if the city had a serious policy to punish unlicensed drivers, Don Rosenberg might not have lost a son. Alas, in 2009 Mayor Gavin Newsom directed police to not impound the cars of unlicensed drivers if they could get a licensed friend to drive the car away. Then Police Chief George Gascón, now district attorney, was a booster for the idea. He said at the time the program would help not only illegal immigrants, who could not obtain licenses, but also, people who cannot afford driving training and a license. Some people drive without a license because they cannot pass a test or drove so badly they lost their licenses. It remains a mystery to me why anyone would want to abet unlicensed driving anywhere, but it’s really crazy for a city with so much public transportation.

This wrong-headed policy was announced after another beneficiary of Ess Eff’s sanctuary-city policy, Edwin Ramos, gunned down Tony Bologna, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16 in June 2008. As Jaxon Van Derbeken reported,

Tony Bologna’s wife, Danielle, and other relatives denounced the city’s sanctuary practices after The Chronicle reported that Ramos, a Salvadoran native suspected of being in this country illegally, had committed felony attempted robbery and assault as a juvenile.

The Chronicle reported that officials with the Juvenile Probation Department, relying on their interpretation of San Francisco’s sanctuary city ordinance, had not referred Ramos to federal immigration authorities for possible deportation. The ordinance bars city officials from cooperating with federal crackdowns on illegal immigrants.

It’s one thing to argue that the city should try to protect otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants. I do not agree. Violating immigration law should have consequences. But in the name of defending otherwise law-abiding immigrants, San Francisco shields law-breaking illegal immigrants. And the consequences have been fatal.